When a person wants to send an object to someone else (the xe2x80x9caddresseexe2x80x9d), they wrap up the object and address it. Then this person, which we will call the customer, either drops off the object to a place where it is stored temporarily or the delivery company (the xe2x80x9cdelivererxe2x80x9d) picks it up and drops it off there. In the case of the U.S. Postal Service, this storage location would usually be the local Post Office.
At the storage location this object and many others are gathered, and must then be sorted. They must be sorted to decide where to send each object, so each object must be looked at to decide which plane, truck, or train to put it on so that it goes to the area where the addressee lives. For example, if a customer in Spokane, Washington wants to send a 4 by 6 inch picture frame to a friend in Kennebunk, Me. the customer wraps it, addresses it, and either drops it off at the deliverer""s Spokane office, or has the deliverer pick it up. By the end of the day the deliverer has, let us say, 6200 objects in its central Spokane office. Let us also say that of the 6200 objects, 112 are destined for the Portland, Me., area of which three are destined for Kennebunk. The deliverer must sort the objects to separate from the 6200 the 112 to be sent to Portland, Me. When the 112 objects arrive from Spokane in Portland, the Portland office will have received, let us say, 1430 additional objects from the rest of the world that are destined for delivery addresses in the Portland area.
The objects in the Portland office must be sorted again, to decide which delivery vehicle to put each object on. One of these vehicles is scheduled to drive to Kennebunk. Thus, after sorting the 1430 objects from the rest of the world, plus the 112 from Spokane, 38 are destined for Kennebunk, only three of which (including our customer""s picture frame) is from Spokane. These 38 are placed in the Kennebunk-bound delivery vehicle which then delivers the picture frame and the 37 other objects to addresses in Kennebunk.
In this example, the picture frame only went through two sortings: one in Spokane and one in Portland; but a typical object may go through many more. Delivery companies, not surprisingly, have developed methods and machines to sort objects.
Delivery companies, especially those delivering large quantities of small objects, usually use one of two methods to sort objects. In the first, a person picks up each object, reads information off of the object, decides where to place the object, and then places the object in an appropriate sort destination (like, for instance, a bin bound for Portland or Kennebunk). The second conventional method uses a fully automated system where a machine, rather than a person, performs the above tasks. The drawbacks of the first method include human error, slow reading, and slow decision making. The second method, i.e., the fully automated system, is not without failings as well, most notably that it is expensive.
The advantages and purposes of the invention will be set forth in part in the description which follows, and in part will be obvious from the description, or may be learned by practice of the invention. The advantages and purposes of the invention will be realized and attained by means of the elements and combinations particularly pointed out in the appended claims.
To attain the advantages and in accordance with the purposes of the invention, as embodied and broadly described herein, the invention comprises a method for sorting objects, which includes capturing object information from a machine readable indicia on an object, determining routing information from the information, determining, based on the routing information, a correct sort destination for the object, and generating a visual and/or audio command identifying the correct sort destination for the object.
The invention also comprises an object sorting system comprising a rack system, comprising a plurality of sort destination modules, each sort destination module further comprising a sort destination capable of holding one or more objects, a management system comprising a control system, an information capture device for reading machine-readable indicia from each object and for outputting the information to the control system, and an audio system for providing instructions to an operator.
It is to be understood that both the foregoing general description and the following detailed description are exemplary and explanatory only and are not restrictive of the invention as claimed.